"That's because I'm an old tramp," he said, laughing sort of; "I like to sit up on barnyard fences and chin with old wives—whenever I can manage to get away from my patrol."
"Gee, I don't blame them for not letting you get away from them," I said.
All the while we were hiking it along between the mountains and it was pretty wet in some places, because it was a low valley we were in.
"Now this is Nick's Valley," Bert said; "it's all full of puddles, hey? Look out for your feet. This will bring us out at the old creek bed and we can follow that down to the Hudson. Look at that fish, will you? A killie, huh? Washed away in here. Some rains!" He poked a little killie out from under some grass with his stick—honest, that fellow never missed anything. "Sometimes I root out the funniest kinds of insects you ever saw with a stick," he said; "it's a kind of a magic wand. Ever talk with a civil engineer?"
"Believe me," I said, "the only civil engineer I ever talked with, did most of the talking. He wouldn't let us play ball in his lot. He was an uncivil engineer, that's what he was."
Bert said, "Well, there was a civil engineer here with a troop from out west somewhere. He was
